News Release

Taxes on Rich: Public vs. Government

January 5, 2011

DAVID LINDORFF
Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist, author and founder of the online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net. He just wrote the piece “A Profound and Jarring Disconnect,” which states: “According to the latest poll conducted by CBS ’60 Minutes’ and the magazine Vanity Fair, 61 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy as the primary way to cut the budget [deficit]. The same poll finds that the second most popular first choice for cutting the nation’s budget deficit, at 20 percent, is cutting the military budget. That is, 81 percent of us — four out of five — would cut the deficit by taxing the rich and/or slashing military spending.

“Only 4 percent of those polled favored cutting Medicare, the government-run program that provides health care for the elderly and disabled, and only 3 percent favored cutting Social Security. …

“On every key issue of public concern — protecting Social Security, reforming and universalizing health care, re-regulating the banking industry, ending America’s endless wars, cutting the military budget, and taking serious steps to combat global climate change, the government in this supposed democracy has gone against the wishes of the majority of the public.”